Panamaleaks remains the top story of the week for two reasons. The opposition is not willing to let go without extracting its pound of flesh – which happens to be the head of the prime minister, no less. And the government wants to drag it on and reverse focus on the dregs in the opposition so that the case against it is diluted.
The opposition has tried to cobble a broad unity and consensus on how to exploit the subject to maximum effect. It has also tried valiantly to coral the government. But it has failed on both counts. A consensus has eluded the opposition because each party has different vested interests in approaching a solution. The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf wants to oust the government by hook or by crook. But the other parties, like the PPP and MQM, are wary of creating conditions for third umpire intervention that would put them on the rack too. Others, like the JUI and the small nationalist groups, have cozied up to the PMLN in the expectation of extracting some patronage-dividends.
Meanwhile, the government has been both wily and slippery. At every stage, it has taken two steps forward to tackle the opposition, then readily backtracked one step to appear confident and flexible. When the opposition demanded a judicial commission, the government swiftly proposed one with retired judges. When the opposition objected, it conceded one with serving Supreme Court judges. When the opposition objected to the Terms of Reference (TORs) it readily agreed to discuss these with them. When Imran Khan threatened to spill over into the streets of Punjab, the prime minister seized the initiative and whipped up supportive crowds in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. When the opposition demanded his immediate resignation on moral grounds, he clenched his fist and advised the “small fry” to wait until the 2018 elections and beyond.
In the latest instance, the opposition has admitted lack of unity and purpose but managed to unveil the draft of a proposed law and TORs to investigate Panamaleaks. A cursory glance reveals it to be a quixotic project. It seeks inquisitorial justice (the accused is presumed to be guilty and must prove his innocence) in a political system and jurisprudence culture that exists in a completely contrary adversarial world (the accused is presumed to be innocent and the accuser must prove his guilt).
It also focuses on the prime minister and his family whereas the government is determined to spread the net far and wide so that the accusers also become the accused (no PMLN parliamentarian has been named in the Panamaleaks as being the beneficial owner of an off-shore company but at least two members of the PTI and PPP are in the list). This has undermined the credibility of the opposition. More critically, the opposition doesn’t even have a fraction of the numbers in parliament needed to pass such a law.
The PTI, in particular, has been shown to be hypocritical and indecisive. Imran Khan tweeted that anyone who had set up an offshore company should be presumed to be a crook and dealt with accordingly. But when it transpired that two PTI stalwarts, Jehangir Tareen and Aleem Khan, were more or less guilty of owning offshore accounts, assets and companies, he was swift to exonerate them on the pretext that they had not broken any law! He has also been vacillating over strategy. Should he launch street agitation in the midst of summer with Ramadan approaching and without support from the PPP or should be stick inside a broad opposition united front that painstakingly negotiates TORs with the government and ponders over battling it out with the government inside parliament or in the supreme court?
One month down the line, the government and opposition are still miles apart on finding a way out of the fog of Panamaleaks. Meanwhile, the chief justice of Pakistan, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, is sitting on the government’s request to set up a commission of inquiry in accordance with the TORs of the government and has refrained from commenting on the developing situation. Given the uncomfortable experience of his predecessor CJP who headed the Judicial Commission on Election Rigging in which all the parties had agreed on the TORs, he is not likely to wade into a political potboiler and remain sanguine about delivering justice. Imran Khan, in particular, has been scathing of the judiciary when it hasn’t served his naked ambitions. The post-Iftikhar Chaudhry Supreme Court is also disinclined to play any activist or populist role in charting the way forward, especially since the term of the current chief justice is ending later this year.
The Third Umpire, too, is not exactly itching to jump into the fray. The military’s hands are full dealing with internal and external security challenges. The army chief has also publicly disavowed political ambitions. If the government remains calm, cool and collected, it will shrug off this latest crisis too.
The opposition has tried to cobble a broad unity and consensus on how to exploit the subject to maximum effect. It has also tried valiantly to coral the government. But it has failed on both counts. A consensus has eluded the opposition because each party has different vested interests in approaching a solution. The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf wants to oust the government by hook or by crook. But the other parties, like the PPP and MQM, are wary of creating conditions for third umpire intervention that would put them on the rack too. Others, like the JUI and the small nationalist groups, have cozied up to the PMLN in the expectation of extracting some patronage-dividends.
Meanwhile, the government has been both wily and slippery. At every stage, it has taken two steps forward to tackle the opposition, then readily backtracked one step to appear confident and flexible. When the opposition demanded a judicial commission, the government swiftly proposed one with retired judges. When the opposition objected, it conceded one with serving Supreme Court judges. When the opposition objected to the Terms of Reference (TORs) it readily agreed to discuss these with them. When Imran Khan threatened to spill over into the streets of Punjab, the prime minister seized the initiative and whipped up supportive crowds in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. When the opposition demanded his immediate resignation on moral grounds, he clenched his fist and advised the “small fry” to wait until the 2018 elections and beyond.
In the latest instance, the opposition has admitted lack of unity and purpose but managed to unveil the draft of a proposed law and TORs to investigate Panamaleaks. A cursory glance reveals it to be a quixotic project. It seeks inquisitorial justice (the accused is presumed to be guilty and must prove his innocence) in a political system and jurisprudence culture that exists in a completely contrary adversarial world (the accused is presumed to be innocent and the accuser must prove his guilt).
It also focuses on the prime minister and his family whereas the government is determined to spread the net far and wide so that the accusers also become the accused (no PMLN parliamentarian has been named in the Panamaleaks as being the beneficial owner of an off-shore company but at least two members of the PTI and PPP are in the list). This has undermined the credibility of the opposition. More critically, the opposition doesn’t even have a fraction of the numbers in parliament needed to pass such a law.
The PTI, in particular, has been shown to be hypocritical and indecisive. Imran Khan tweeted that anyone who had set up an offshore company should be presumed to be a crook and dealt with accordingly. But when it transpired that two PTI stalwarts, Jehangir Tareen and Aleem Khan, were more or less guilty of owning offshore accounts, assets and companies, he was swift to exonerate them on the pretext that they had not broken any law! He has also been vacillating over strategy. Should he launch street agitation in the midst of summer with Ramadan approaching and without support from the PPP or should be stick inside a broad opposition united front that painstakingly negotiates TORs with the government and ponders over battling it out with the government inside parliament or in the supreme court?
One month down the line, the government and opposition are still miles apart on finding a way out of the fog of Panamaleaks. Meanwhile, the chief justice of Pakistan, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, is sitting on the government’s request to set up a commission of inquiry in accordance with the TORs of the government and has refrained from commenting on the developing situation. Given the uncomfortable experience of his predecessor CJP who headed the Judicial Commission on Election Rigging in which all the parties had agreed on the TORs, he is not likely to wade into a political potboiler and remain sanguine about delivering justice. Imran Khan, in particular, has been scathing of the judiciary when it hasn’t served his naked ambitions. The post-Iftikhar Chaudhry Supreme Court is also disinclined to play any activist or populist role in charting the way forward, especially since the term of the current chief justice is ending later this year.
The Third Umpire, too, is not exactly itching to jump into the fray. The military’s hands are full dealing with internal and external security challenges. The army chief has also publicly disavowed political ambitions. If the government remains calm, cool and collected, it will shrug off this latest crisis too.